Eight Hundred Grapes (800 slaps to my face) ~ Book Review

Eight Hundred Nopes–you know a story is off to a bad start and dull as fuck all when the names of the characters escape you 100 pages in. Often, I found myself flipping a few odd pages back just to help me remember who was who. That’s not good at all. The shit thing is, Laura Dave’s writing isn’t bad. It’s actually pretty clever but once again good writing cannot save a lackluster story.

Maybe this book wasn’t a good introduction to Dave? Because I saw hope neatly packed within her prose. I have a strong feeling in my stomach that that’s exactly what it is.

There’s Eight Hundred shitty things wrong with this book though. The plot, for one, consists of everyone being stupidly dishonest with one another, everyone is having some kind of affair or on the edge of one…….wait what am I saying. There wasn’t any plot. Just one hella of huge big miscommunication.

Eight Hundred Miscommunications.

Eight Hundred Ways To Avoid Your Problems.

EVERYTHING could’ve easily been solved with some open honest dialogue. There’s nothing wrong with miscommunications in stories but they have to be cleverly done. Not just random plot devices to stress out the protagonist. The Fords were forgettable, annoying, and carried a blood line of fucking stupidity.

Hate hate hate hate hate……

But there were a lot of moments that saved it for me. Enough to give this soap opera three stars. I think Dave did a good job at wrapping everything up. I was so happy when it was over…I could finally move on from the pettiness. The only person I liked in this entire shit storm was Jacob. That’s who I wanted to read about. His super smart girlfriend too.

I will give Laura Dave another try because I honestly could see myself enjoying her story telling. This book just seemed really messy? I just don’t like messy characters that can’t solve easy problems for themselves.

TLDR; I honestly don’t have much else to say about this book other than it’s meant for mindless reading. This would be a good book to read while traveling. It’s not long, the prose isn’t pretentious. It’s very straight to the point, be it all the points are pretty dumb and predictable.